你好 (Hello)

The team received the details of the projects we are going to work on during our CSC mission! Lesley, who is our local contact, did a great job; she translated the expectations in a well documented statement of work. As an entire team we will provide community services for a college in Xiamen. We will work with the faculty members on the implementation strategies of smarter cities and with the students on how to build a smarter career path. In parallel, the team will be split into four groups, each of these subteams will be working in parallel on two engagements with local enterprises. For these engagements I will work with Megan from Chicago and with Amit from India. The first project is with a local enterprise, a spring plant, seeking for advice on corporate branding, performance management, and cross-culture collaboration. The second project is with a local  communications technology provider (unfortunately there website is in Cantonese and still did not figure out the details) seeking for advice on channel management en leadership practices. So, three projects, it will be busy times!

Our preparations calls continue. I noticed that the number of e-mail exchanges and the number of updates on our collaboration platform are steadily increasing. I expect the number of calls also to increase over the next weeks, as we will try to schedule preparation calls with the different people whom we will meet in Xiamen.

I also try to work my through a basic Mandarin language course. I got access toe the Rosetta Stone Total-E platform, which is a great learning program. But the Mandarin language …. wow, that’s tough! So many different pronunciations of the same words! I will try to find enough motivation to proceed the learning schedule.

As mentioned before on my previous blog, I will extend my stay in China and have now finalized my personal travel plans. After the project I will first go to Beijing for a few days. Thereafter I will take a flight to Xi’an to see the famous terracotta warriors and then take a flight to Lhasa. From there I will take a driver and guide to discover the beauty of Tibet, including a journey to feel the amazing area of Mount Everest. From there it will take me few days to return home, first returning to Lhasa, then via Beijing back to Brussels.

再见 (Goodbye)